Description

The Treasures of Montezuma is another rendition of Bejeweled which has players solving "match 3" puzzles while following a non-interactive adventure storyline.

The location is Cancun, Mexico, in 1935 where young Dr. Emily Jones is working at the Archaeological Museum. The discovery of an ancient stone tablet in the museum sparks her interest. She ultimately concludes that solving tile-matching puzzles will lead her to a secret Aztec city. Emily's journal acts as a record of her findings, and newspaper articles and other documents keep the story moving along at a preset pace.

The objective during the tile matching games is to collect all of the sparkling gems in a level before the time runs out on the ticking pocket watch. The number needed for the level is displayed above the main grid. Swap one stone at a time by choosing a pair, which trade places with a click, slowly eliminating all those which contain gemstones. The entire board can be shuffled twice and hints can be purchased for the cost of points.

The number of gems needed to clear a stage increases by increments of five for each level, maxing out at 200. Therefore, the player needs to work much faster and wiser in later levels to get all of the gems. Luckily there are power-ups that are activated with the golden stars earned when each level is solved. Aztec statue totems in six colors and other modifiers take action in the level when two identical color tile matches are done by the player. The Fire Totem (red) bombs bunches of tiles, for example, while the Time Totem (orange) adds time to the countdown clock.

There are also timed mini-games sprinkled throughout the game which provide more opportunities to earn gold stars. Those include a simple "accuracy challenge" (click on stars that fly across the screen), and concentration (find two matching tiles) as well as others.

The game has five chapters and 41 total levels. After completing the game once in Adventure mode, the Hard mode becomes available with higher goals and a faster pace.